Health

January 12, 2011

The most talked-about mother in the world today is Amy Chua, a mom who says that if you call your kids "lazy, cowardly,self-indulgent and pathetic... garbage"— and physically force them to do things they hate— they will make you proud at Yale in the years to come.

—you will not only end up with a grade-grubbing piano soloist who’s afraid of her shadow, you will also produce a first-class SEXUAL BASKET CASE.

A young person who is alienated from her own basic pleasure and self-determination is on her way to a post-puberty future of despair and denial. (“The truth is I'm not good at enjoying life,” says Chua).

If one's orgasm is a terrible secret, or completely elusive—all the gold medals in the world don’t make up for it. It’s a lonely and fearful place. Sex being “difficult" is very much about adulthood being difficult—permanent infantilism is no answer.

Lest you think I am describing an Onanist's lament, take pause. Young people who are sexually crippled— sorry, I have to be blunt here— find themselves in a special kind of hell when it comes to bonding with a partner, having "grown-up" relationships. Despite a record of glowing diplomas and filial subservience, married life, (or mature single life!) will be torture when you can’t “connect,” when you don’t know what love means outside a tyrannical umbilical cord.

For those of you who will read the story of Chua’s two daughters: Sophie is the eldest, the one who appears to submit to every crack. Lulu, the younger, fights her mother hammer and tong. Isn’t it obvious which girl stands a chance in adult life? If Sophie’s trajectory follows the script laid out before us, she’ll have a nervous breakdown by 30. Lulu’s combative spirit will save her butt. I hope, truly, that I’m wrong and this guidebook is one extravagant joke— but I doubt it.

The poignant goal of every parent, from the moment of our infant’s birth, is to help the child take one more step away from you, every day. When they first walk, we applaud. They reveal their surprising opinions and gifts— we are thrilled. Yes, we snatch them out of the fire, we show them everything we know— but the point is for them to FLEX.

In Chua’s parenting code, the mission is the myth of perfection, to “mirror Mommy” at every turn, never knowing what’s right except in Mother’s rejection or momentary favor. It’s like being raised by the Red Queen, a woman with a "borderline personality" if there ever was one.

Popular American parenting debates offer a false choice: Are you going to be the Authoritarian Narcissist? Or the “Feel-Good” Coddling Egoist? One is like Amy, tearing up sub-standard homemade birthday cards and throwing them in her daughter’s face.

The other extreme, the “Stoner Mom Who Wanders Off to Pierce Her Belly Button and Leaves Kids in Car” is simply the twin sister of the first. Neither mother “sees” her children apart from themselves; it’s all projection. Each has read the same bible: “Free to Be Me... and Me.”

In my sex education work, I often get asked by parents, how to guide young people to a non-neurotic sex life, to have a good head on their shoulders about their bodies and desires.

It’s not that a parent picks up a baby and says, “Oh boy, the orgasms you’ll have!”

No, but mothers and fathers DO ask ourselves the questions our own childhoods left behind:

Can a kid grow up without religious superstition? —With an appreciative, objective view of their bodies?

Will they be confident in their sex lives, rather than appeasers, hurters, or fakers?

Will they have a sense of humor about sex, be able to share their warmth and affection, and learn from their sexual imagination?

That’s sexual health, in a nutshell. It’s synonymous with adult independence. Living a life without looking over your shoulder for approval, without shame and self-doubt, is as much a sexual issue as it is a maturity benchmark. “Red Queen” parenting is never going to cut it.

Most parents are laughing at, or recoiling from BHTM. They don't think they’d go as far as Chua, or plan to do quite the opposite. So what can a mom and dad provide, seriously, that will cultivate sexual maturity and grace?

I’m not going to suggest vibrators as Bat Mitzvah gifts. That’s ridiculous, and part of the same narcissism I’m critiquing. Good parenting is not about shopping or inserting yourself where you don’t belong. Respect starts with heartfelt boundaries— I hate to use that overplayed word, but it carries a deep message.

My battle hymn, my big parenting “sex tip” is this:

1. Don’t hit your kids; don’t make them the target of your violence.

Like incest, physical abuse binds a parent to a child in a way that is a true hardship to surmount. Don’t raise your offspring to look for that cruelty, or repeat it. They are not your property, they are not your chew toy.

A kid who has never been struck or damaged by a parent has a physical confidence in themselves that is unmistakeable. Kahlil Gibran has always had the most eloquent poetry on the subject:

Your children are not your children;They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.They come through you— but not from you;And though they are with you, they belong not to you.

(I first heard Sweet Honey in the Rock sing these words in song when I was pregnant, and it was like twenty years of therapy in three minutes).

If you never say a word about sex to your kids, but you manage to keep your angry hands to yourself, you will have done your children a radical sexual favor. Violence won't be what keeps your family’s values intact. That is a triumph beyond any report card.

Secondly:

2. Privacy counts: yours and theirs.

This subject, privacy, isn’t about the luxury of multiple bathrooms. It can be hard to make quiet space for yourself or your kids. But their ability to self-soothe, to read and dream, (and yes, masturbate on their own), to play without interference— that’s what growing up is all about.

Likewise, the parent who models private time for themselves, who asks for and gives that respect, is cultivating the notion that one can “love and let go,” with presence and security.

I have a book’s worth to say on this subject (maybe two or three!) but humility seems in order. There's a million pieces of parenthood I wonder about, and I always will.

I don’t know what the real story of Chua’s family life is— there’s a whiff of hokum in the book’s promotion.The aspect of her pitch that troubles me the most, is that her daughters have been the repeated target of her rage and insult— all kidding aside. They seem to never have had a moment to themselves without mom jumping in. Maybe with this book tour she’s on, they'll finally get a break.

September 07, 2010

Of course, Dan is a love/hate-magnet, but I think the reason this show's popularity spreads by word of mouth is because he and I have known each other for so many decades, back when we were esoteric. I should really call this show"You Don't Know Dan Savage!"

I'm afraid these shows are monster-popular because sadly, there is so LITTLE information and self-help about herpes that isn't just preaching and screaming about damnation. I am so sick of the medical profession not sharing what they KNOW about herpes I just had to blow the whistle.

This is the big surprise for me on my Audible sales sheet. I think they have more gay men listeners than they know, or at least publicize. I wish they had a special gay section where I could anthologize all the great gay sex interviews I've done in one place.

If I put the word "g-spot" in every one of my titles, I could up my sales considerably, but it just makes me annoyed that everyone is so titillated by the idea that there's an Elevator Express Button to Female Orgasm Without the Bother. Nevertheless, I am eager to let people in on the state-of-the-art information about the G-spot and its relationship to Our CLIT, and so this is the Magna Carta!

Every guy over 38 is thinking about this topic and that describes a great deal of Audible's membership. I know the title is titillating, but we really do get into every nook and cranny. It's a national scandal that it's such a hush-hush topic.

I'm thrilled this is popular, although it probably attracts a lot of looky-loos who normally wouldn't give a hoot about my show. It's one of the strangest weirdest tales in Show Business, it ought to be part of Black History month, but I won't go holding my breath.

This is one of my favorite "names" for a show and I'm glad people responded to it. I know the 3-Way fantasy is very hot in Hollywood right now, but their depiction is so absurd and unrealistic SOMEONE had to step up to the bat and say, "here's how it really goes down."

This is actually an anthology of all my best interviews and shows that concern personal stories about women (myself included) and the porn biz. It's a great compilation, so I'm glad people are finding it, even if the title is pure camp.

This is always a big seller, it's obvious. It's by far, hands-down, the cheapest way to get my show, weekly. You pay, like, 70 CENTS a show instead of SIX DOLLARS per show. Frugal Sex Fiends, take note!

AudioBooks, the Meat & Potatoes

Over in my book area... all my books are more popular than my shows, because most people have no idea Audible has been broadcasting my weekly sex/culture/poltics show for over ten years. They don't know Audible does original programming.

Nevertheless, it's interesting to see the book hits too. The two most popular are a couple of the last Best American Erotica anthologies that I published for Simon and Schuster. It was a fifteen year series.

I would LOVE to change the titles of these gems, because they are all numbered by YEAR, and people think, "What do I care, reading stories from, 1996? Not to mention, 1993?

Well, I'll tell you why. Regardless of year, they're simply the best erotic literary fiction (killer writers, stories you won't forget easily) ever published. I could read you a story from 2000 or 1998, and you'd never know it wasn't written yesterday.

What can I say?— we were ahead of our time. I would suggest if you got one, and loved it, don't hesitate to grab them all. I produced them all with Stefan Rudnicki and his great cast of actors (I read some stories, myself) and we knocked ourselves out!

Middle; Jill Posener from the original Stormy Leather catalog. Jill Posener and Honey Lee Cottrell did all the photography for Kathy Andrews leather designs. She was the first, the only tailor/designer to do sexy and fetish leather for women.Lulu Belliveau styled Ulrike (seated) and I, which is why we look so good. Seriously.

Bottom; BAE cover, 2005. Everyone likes this cover, I think because it's like a little suspenseful story all to itself.

September 02, 2010

Veronica Monet, a feminist prostitute and loving wife, talks about how she got into hooking, why she stays in it, and what she's learned about herself and her clients.

Jack Boulware, author of Sex American Style and San Francisco Bizzaro.

Phyllis Chesler, feminist and author of Women and Madness and Woman's Inhumanity to Woman explores the dark side of sisterhood: how women treat each other badly.

Richard Kadrey, author of the cyberpunk novels, Sandman Slim and Kamakazi L'Amourtalks about the history of getting into S/M and advice for expressing your fantasies to your lover.

Staci Haines, the author of A Survivor's Guide to Sex: How to Have a Great Sex Life after Sexual Abuse. Susie talks with Staci about the process of sexual healing for incest survivors. The best interview you'll ever hear on incest and sexual recovery.

Carol Queen, author of Exhibitionism for the Shy and Real Life Nude Girl talks about the anatomy of an orgasm, including the elusive g-spot and what Viagra does to women.

I asked Cory to come talk with me about everything he doesn't get asked on the usual sound-bite "sexpert" shows.

This is a must-listen— I rarely get to talk to someone this sophisticated about sexual practice and philosophy.

Some of our topics:

• Should Yuppie Moms Give Their Darling Daughters a Vibrator? Cory and I have a thing or two to tell Oprah; like back the fuck up....

• Do children of "open marriages" or swingers grow up to feel the same way about their relationships? Ice Storm, anyone?

• What two sex toys would Cory "take to a desert island"-- and which sex-garbage would he prefer to bury on that island and never see anyone use again? He's one of the worker-owners at Toronto's "Come As You Are," so believe me, he KNOWS ALL THE DIRT.

• Why is the 1974 film Coming Home still the cultural reference point for disabled sex? Cory quotes Tom Shakespeare, ""the trouble is not how can we have sex, it's who can we have sex with..."

There are so many jive hucksters and sob sisters inundating us with "sex advice"— that I am honored to introduce you to people who show real insight, compassion, and serious sexual knowledge. Listen to me get my eyes opened by:

There is NOTHING I like better than taking a so-called "sex story" from the mainstream press and following the money. Listen to me break it down with:

Doug Henwood, editor of The Left Business Observer, on why economists so often ignore sex at their peril,

Richard Connerney, Phillips Talbot fellow at the Institute of Current World Affairs, who came back from Lucknow, India, with mind-expanding stories about sex work and gender-bending in a world Americans never think of,

The DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, in her last candid interview before her untimely suicide. Hard to hear now, but so poignant.

Length, Price, Tech

Each of my audiobooks is 5-6 hours long.

If you buy it "a la carte" it's $13.96— or if you're a member of Audible, it's (1) credit.

If you sign up for Audible to make this your first purchase, ti's $7.49.

You can listen to it on your computer, or music player, phone, or burn it onto CD.

At Long Last...

I know some of you are big fans of "in Bed with Susie Bright," and you wish you could find the best of my old shows without buying every single back episode. Relief and satisfaction are finally at hand! Coming up next... we're going to bundle the best of my shows from last year.

Take a listen and tell us what you think of it! I think we found some territory you'll never hear on "Fresh Air!"

November 14, 2009

For those of us who who are devoted to the American tele-novella Mad Men, the recent psycho-shooting at Ft. Hood had an eerie plot echo.

(Spoilers ahead).

In Mad Men, which takes place in New York of 1963, there's a fictional character named Greg, an aspiring surgeon who disgraces himself so badly in the operating room that he is forced to go into, shame of all shames, psychiatry.

Since I've placed my life in the hands of a therapist more than once, this reaction came as a surprise to me!

Yet among Greg's colleagues at the hospital, the psychiatry career path is considered a "fail." The deep background on Greg is that we already know he is a messed-up dude, a rapist with serious issues who is the LAST person you'd want to be talking to on a couch.

As the season closes, we learn that Greg has joined the Army where they're desperate enough to take a loser like him and give him a surgeon's scalpel and a badge.

He's so ignorant he doesn't have a clue that Vietnam is his imminent destination.

Meanwhile, in real life, Nidal Malik Hasan, the deranged Army psychiatrist who went on a shooting spree at Ft. Hood, also turns out to be… a failed surgeon. The detail that caught my eye was the anecdote revealed by his uncle, who said that Hasan went into psychiatry after he FAINTED in the O.R. during a routine childbirth. The sight of a baby emerging from a woman's vagina sent Nidal over the edge.

With that clue, something in me snapped.

This was a guy, who by all accounts so far, has never been on a date, and routinely complained to his mosque's imam that he couldn't find a woman "pious" enough to marry, a virgin who would wear a veil around the clock.

Hassan is being scrutinized for any potential ties to espionage, fanatical religious beliefs, and vicarious PTSD from treating so many broken soldiers.

But this man's craziness is more clearly understood in the context of his severe and distorted sexual repression.

In the midst of this reality-fantasy convergence, another piece of patriarchal-creep rocked the country— this time, affecting more people than Ft. Hood and Mad Men's viewership combined. We witnessed the Orwellian "health care reform" process become derailed by what I call "The Stupid Amendment," a wildly successful Vatican intervention to make sure that whatever health care plan comes out of Congress, it will be engineered to control women's wombs.

In other words, health insurance for men, not for women.

The Stupak Amendment is ostensibly about preventing women from using their insurance coverage to pay for abortion procedures. But making a rule that women's healthcare below the waist is subject to moral review is outrageous.

Would any of these politicians consider making a health care exemption to the complications of a man's penis? His prostate? His semen? His scrotum? His urethra? Would urologists, like abortion surgeons, be treated like criminals whose entire knowledge base should be wiped out of existence? Would any man be put on parade to prove "rape, incest, or imminent death" in order to prove that he needed a procedure about ANYTHING?

"Pro-life" rhetoric is now used across the aisle, with even the President proclaiming that the federal government will never fund abortions.

Afghanistan annihilation, yes! Abortion, no!

Our war-lovin', misogynistic culture cares so little about "life" that the candlelight vigil for the Hasan's victims at Fort Hood had the air of a rote exercise. Here's Wade Goodwyn, from NPR, talking last week:

The thing I was struck by was... that the vigil was a well-established routine.

I mean, this was a pretty big moment for me, but I could tell that the attending crowd had done this before.

And when we interviewed people, the soldiers and the families, after the vigil was over, they'd tell us, "I've been to too many of these already."

This country cares little about killing all life forms and even less about the welfare of its children. Our atrocious infant mortality rates, hungry children, uneducated children, children with birth defects and developmental disabilities treated like trash… my blood's turned cold. Watching Congressmen gleefully cheer on the passage of the Stupak amendment, for me, was like watching Greg rape Joan— and worse, to witness her acceptance of it.

American boomerangs from "Fear of a Black Planet," a Youth Revolt, a genderfuck coup, to the opposite horror: that of a lone man with a big gun.

Meet the older, privileged, "had-all-the-opportunities" kinda guy who comes equipped with a bomb, no dates, and a pathologically self-centered attitude. Oh, we'll wish he had only been in the Crips! If only he'd been a drag queen, if only he'd pierced his dick and gotten high on dope! Any of these would be preferable, a million times more humane.

We can diss a counter-culture, but what are we supposed to do with a counter-human? We can't stand to look at the cult of alienated masculinity and wonder how we got here.

September 03, 2008

When I look back on this year, 2008, one event besides the election will stick out in my mind: my physical transformation. I lost thirty-something pounds in the last six months.

It's been quite a jolt.

Last weekend I was a co-star of the halftime hula hoop show at the Roller Derby. The weekend before that, I walked 30 miles down the shore from Brighton Beach to the Monterey Wharf. And I bicycled to the hardware store this morning and didn't even think about the big hill that leads to my house.

Any of you who know me personally, are probably dropping your fork.

I turned 50 in March. Over the winter, I'd watched a couple of friends, just a few years older, suffer serious setbacks. High-risk knee operations. Diabetes diagnoses. Heart attacks! Whatever happened to flaming out young with a good-looking corpse?

I couldn't get over how some folks in their 50s are struggling to stay alive, and others are climbing Mt. Everest.

I wanted to be one of the latter— or at least their cousin. I'm not planning on sticking around forever; I want to have more adventures and intrigues, and I can't do that if I'm staggering around moaning, "Oh, my aching arse." I have "Seize the Time" embroidered on my jean jacket— and it needs to be put to use.

Nothing is terribly wrong with me; knock-knock. But when I went for a physical at my doctor's office— and I laid out all the little hassles and bothers that confine my sloth-like existence, tears rolled down my cheeks.

What sedentary cramp had overtaken me the past twenty years? Well, I wasn't alone. Writers like myself spend endless hours in bad chairs, typing. We lie down and type, to tell the truth. We like bon-bons, and whiskey. My only callus is on my pencil finger. We get lost in our story-telling and forget to engage any gears below the neck.

I don't remember what put the notion in my mind, but after the doctor's visit, I lay down, as usual, with my MacBook and looked up WeightWatchers to see where the closest meeting was. A friend of mine recommended a group leader down here, Jennifer Barley, and promised she wasn't a diet robot— but a real teacher with charisma.

Good; I needed a shot of transference.

It was weird, the first time, to seek out the shopping mall that housed the WW meetings. The last meeting I went to that dealt with weight issues was the “Fat Liberation Consciousness Raising Group” at the Ocean Park Women's Center in the 1970s. I was slender then, but damn, was I ever fed up with the diet-military complex... I still am! If this WW meeting had even a speck of antifeminist bullshit, I was going to march right out the door.

I didn't know what to expect. I've never altered my eating regime in my life, except to savor a new treat. Furthermore, I'm a lifelong powderpuff. I hid out from PE classes my entire school career and was bullied out of any interest in team sports. I was so bony as a child people offered me sandwiches to fatten me up, like Hansel and Gretel.

For me to go to a meeting about "getting fit" was like a Math Phobic signing up for Sleepover Calculus.

I knew in advance that WW was like science class mixed with a 12-step meeting. They have a little equation to keep track of what you're eating every day: Calories plus Fat plus Fiber equals a certain number of "points." It's an engrossing game. You eat whatever you want, but you journal your points. If you keep within your target range, you lose pounds; the natural consequence is inevitable.

My doctor, Flash Gordon, had already inspired me when I read his latest book, about whipping motorcyclists into better health. (He drives a Beemer). It's a great read... I don't ride, but I easily transpose his advice!

He wrote a chapter about "wide in the seat," where he recommended journaling about what you put in your mouth. (Read the whole thing here).

By simply taking pen in hand, whenever you eat something, you make rational what is usually an unconscious activity. You can't write down your daily intake, without spectacular— if awkward— awareness.

But I couldn't do this in solitude— I'd delude myself too easily. The support group part of WW is my favorite part of the whole shebang. People have so many "issues" with their food that just going out and eating sensibly is a Herculean task. There're a million ways to self-sabotage, and virtually none of them have anything to do with physical appetite.

One of the mottos that came up in the first meeting I went to was: "If being hungry isn't the problem— then eating isn't the solution." Such platitudes become soulgasms of epiphany as I listened to other people's rites of passage.

At the first meeting, the woman next to me, was asked what her motivation was to maintain her goal. She's been a member for a long time, and had lost forty pounds. She was very quiet when Jen spoke to her. Finally, she replied, "Really, it’s just the frailty of life."

That sent me over the edge.

My reactions surprised me. I always thought weight loss— on my part at least— would only be motivated by vanity or neurotic insecurity. I'd moaned in the mirror plenty of times. But neither my ego nor my hangups prompted me to do anything. Wishing I was more of a fox didn't move me an inch.

No, it's the physical pain that pushed me, the feeling of my life getting smaller because I felt semi-cruddy most of the time. I was watching my peers, people who I thought were Adonises in high school, suffer in ways that scared the piss out of me. I could see where it was all heading. I sobbed.

Once I "got with the program," I started losing ounces and pounds without that much strain. I think the first flush of my success is because I was so clueless, that the small changes I made to my refrigerator had a big effect.

Nonfat milk... what a concept! Walking to the corner instead of driving... no shit! It was like waking up a Dormouse from a long winter's nap.

I don't mean to make it sound too pat. I'm an inquisitive person, and I drank down all the new information in great gulps. I’m just as much of a slow food gourmet snob as I ever was.

(The recipe writers at WW are on a different planet from the group that does their processed foods division- the frozen dinners and cookies. The former you'd find plucking their own chicken and growing their own organic fava beens; the latter would be figuring out a low-points binge at KFC).

The "get moving" part of the WW program, however, has been more of a challenge. The very word "exercise" makes me scowl.

I've practiced fooling myself, and playing the fool. If I do things I associate with my childhood, or a destination, like riding my bike, stone-throwing in the quarry, dancing, hooping, tromping off in the wilderness, jumping in a lake... I don't realize that I'm putting my breath and muscles to work. And the more I can do, without pain, the more of a triumphant smartypants I become.

Would you like me to tell you for the fortieth time about my star turn at the hula hoop roller derby?

It has troubled me to decide whether to blog about this, or talk about it at all. What if I have some spectacular fall from my twenty pounds of grace?

My appearance also sets off so many different emotions in my friends, I'm not sure what to prepare for. It pains me to stimulate any negative reactions.

I cringe if anyone who’s one cracker short of anorexia says, "Oh, I need to lose too.” I'm as nauseated as ever with the emptiness of Thin Materialism. Strength and well-being don't have anything to do with the fashion industry or the insurance claims adjuster. I don't want my silhouette to act as a reproach, a threat, or scolding.

What I do like is when a friend of mine says, "Do you want to go— ?" and I say, "Yes."

I go!

No more shooting pains up my knees. No more tummy aches and GI hangovers. What I thought was arthritis just... went away. I warmed up a few degrees, My last periods have been... no big deal. I don't have to wear mittens on a summer day, and I can literally bicycle myself out of almost any dark mood.

I wake up, and to my amazement, I feel like... MOVING. Virtually every complaint I listed at my doctor's visit has either disappeared or receded.

I picked up a friend’s baby the other day, and when I said, "Wow, how much does he weigh now?"

The mom said, 'Oh, he's past 20 pounds," and I thought... I carried that? How did I stagger around?

I am still new at this. My pink balloon of idealism and cheer might go POP at any moment. My mortal coil is certainly not stopping the clock just because I ate a few less chips.

I have a soft spot for my dark side, and if I have to eat more chocolate to keep my edge, I won't hesitate.

But at the moment I'm spooning mouthfuls of plum applesauce, and my PF Flyers make me feel like I can jump higher and run out of words before I run out of breath.

The last dog days of summer are so sweet, and last night I walked to the movies without my sweater, because Santa Cruz and my very own chemistry were having a balmy spell. It's a moment I'd like to cultivate.

Update, 1/1/09: I am now Sporty Spice. Circuit training, kayaking running, mountain biking, road biking, swimming in open water... my parents would die all over again in disbelief if they were here to see me! I have never been strong before. Ever. I'll have to write another story just about that!

Photos: All these are original ads from vintage American magazines, which are sold, appraised and traded on Deco Dog site. I actually remember this exact "Ayds" one from my childhood.

May 20, 2008

When I heard Senator "Teddy" Kennedy had a seizure last week, I stopped breathing for a moment.

Part of it is my generational response: if you're an Irish Catholic like me, who was alive for John and Bobby's assassinations, you grab onto the nearest rail whenever you hear something calamitous has happened to the Kennedys. It's like they're first cousins to our entire immigrant group.

Yet my eyes teared up for another reason: if Ted's seizure wasn't a stroke, it was probably a brain tumor, and a glioblastoma, to be exact, if it was the typical BT diagnosis.

This is what my dad, Bill Bright, died from, a couple years ago. He was diagnosed in the summer, and died in October.

The little-publicized fact about brain tumors is that our medical community doesn't know how to screen for them early, as we do with some other cancers. By the time a doctor finds a tumor in your head, it's probably very, very bad.

What the newspaper isn't saying, and what Kennedy's family might be encountering, is that the prognosis for this cancer is dismal— and mysterious. He will be encouraged to have surgery, chemo, and radiation, but the sad fact is that these procedures will do little or nothing for him, and are more for the research and benefit of others.

Doctors, by and large, are reluctant to take the initiative with you, and say, "It's over, let's talk about pain and seizure relief, and the dying process."

Why not?

It "does harm" to raise false hopes by not being frank. I had to pry the truth out my father's nurses, first. The nurses are more candid, because they don't take the heat for the treatment process or the prognosis.

But even with them, if I hadn't said the word, "hospice," it wouldn't have come up. Once I spoke the secret word, it was as if I entered a new world, where health care professionals could be honest with me.

Why won't physicians address the realities of terminal illness, particularly around cancer diagnoses? The notion and expectation that there's a cure, survivability, and that you're going to be the statistical exception... it's dishonest.

Pain management and comfort will take on giant meanings in the days to come for the Kennedy family. To die free from pain and distress is what we would wish for ourselves, and what we need to offer for everyone.

Are there experimental cures? Oh sure, you can read all about them in the voluminous comments on the NYT Kennedy story. I wish more people realized how science-fiction it is for one of these "experiments" to pan out-- and if one did, it would become mainstream virtually overnight. There is no conspiracy to keep successful brain cancer treatments underground.

The greatest advantage that could help Kennedy now is youth, which he does not have, and no alternative treatment will change that. It's tragic.

If Kennedy's tumor is a typical case, his life expectancy is in weeks, maybe a few months. He will change radically every day now. Whole abilities will disappear in a matter of twenty-four hours. Aspects of what we think of as someone's "character" and "soul" just go POOF. You realize, "Wow, that was the brain, a part of the brain that is gone."

What would I wish for Ted Kennedy? Well, this is a big order for a devout Catholic family, but I hope they pass on "fighting for his life," and instead, fight for his dignified and loving death. There's a lot of visionaries among his relatives, so maybe they'll be willing to break a few rules.

What do I mean by fighting for one's death? Well, it starts with calling the hospice caregivers in their community, and embracing their philosophy. It's palliative care, not curing care. It's midwifery for dying.

Instead of taking a meeting for a new procedure, or figuring how to "beat this thing," I wish Kennedy could take his apparently good spirits and figure out how he wants to go. I hope he says the most important things today, not a moment to spare. I hope he has family who will stick up for him enjoying his last days with the music, memories, and affection he enjoys.

I mention music, in particular, because one of the weird things about brain tumors is that you'll sometimes lose your primary language or speech, but music still makes perfect, beautiful sense to you. I sang to my dad when he couldn't form coherent sentences anymore, and he finished the lyrical line!

Brain tumors have gone from being one of the rarest illnesses anyone heard of, to a more common cause of death, and Kennedy's high profile is going to bring a lot of controversy out of the closet. Everyone who's lived through this is asking about the environment, our food, air and water supply, our technology. Brain tumors aren't in a massive upswing because there's some new hereditary link-- it's a modern way to die.

To my amazement, when I was seeking information about my dad, I only found ONE web site for families of brain tumor patients that had a "get real" attitude, with resources and explanations of what you can expect, day by day. It's called: Seeking Peace, Brain Tumor Hospice Care, which sounds like a platitude, but by the end of this ordeal, you will realize the title is literal:

THE JOURNEY with a brain tumor is an emotional roller coaster for patient and care-giving family alike. Anyone who has been a part of this experience understands the difficulty of these ups and downs. But no matter how long or hard the journey...no matter what the grade or type of tumor...when the road narrows and it is time to think about end-stage comfort, no one feels truly ready for the letting go.

No kidding. I'm still in shock from what happened to our family and friends, and this is why Teddy Kennedy's announcement presses in so close. He's been such a personal figure with a very big public message. If his story can now encompass a national discussion about environmental causes of cancer, and the right to die with self-determination, it will be a heartbreaking, but overdue look at the truth.

November 17, 2007

Tap-dancing in airport stalls is nothing compared to the wasted nights of homophobic Washington state legislator Richard Curtis, who had one hell of a depraved bacchanalia before his inevitable resignation. —Lingerie, cell phone photos, casino bingeing, tight rope, cold stethoscopes, cheap barebacking, and blackmail. He was only one diaper short of a Vitter.

By the time I finished reading about Curtis' Wild Ride, I felt like he'd given the entire Roman Empire a run for their money. Still, I insist on finding the educational value of these sad stories— and I'll use any excuse to talk about the much-maligned topic of ethical barebacking! Take a listen to my latest audio show...